December 1, 2015
New Mexican-Canadian Investment Consortium Created
– – –Initiative at CentrePort Canada To Help Mexican Companies Access New Markets
A dynamic new trading partnership has formed between Mexico and the Province of Manitoba that will see ProMexico, BancoMext, Fideicomisos Instituidos en Relacion con la Agricultura (FIRA) and CentrePort Canada Inc. join forces to create a Mexican investment consortium that will help Mexican companies enter consumer markets in Canada and the Midwestern United States.
The new partnership signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) today at a ceremony formally witnessed by Premier Greg Selinger and Mario Rodriguez Montero, minister for trade and investment, Mexican Embassy to Canada. The event was also attended by more than 20 Mexican company executives, business leaders and government officials who are in Manitoba for an investment mission hosted by CentrePort Canada.
Under the new agreement, the partners will work together to provide companies with single-window access to investor services offered by the four organizations, as well as provide access to a common, central distribution location at CentrePort Canada. CentrePort is an 8,000-hectare tri-modal inland port and foreign trade zone located in Winnipeg.
“Manitoba is very happy to be opening up new trading opportunities with our friends in Mexico,” said Premier Selinger. “As the biggest inland port and foreign trade zone on the continent, CentrePort Canada provides Mexican business a perfect location to manufacture and ship goods into the North and across the U.S. and Canada.”
“Establishing this collaboration at CentrePort – at the northern hub of our shared trade corridor – is a logical and critical next step in increasing trade between Canada and Mexico and ensuring companies are realizing the benefits of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement),” said Rodriguez Montero. “We have done this successfully in Chicago and now it is time to focus our efforts in Canada.”
“Canada and Mexico have a well-established trade relationship but more must be done to help Mexican companies connect directly to our marketplace. We need to simplify and demystify the process,” added Diane Gray, president and CEO, CentrePort Canada Inc. “The first 20 years of NAFTA have been a success on many fronts but we are ready to take our trading partnership to the next level, for the benefit of business and citizens in both our countries.”
CentrePort Canada has already had several meetings with Mexican exporters and other interested companies. The initiative has been developed with the assistance of Manitoba Trade and Investment, its representative in Mexico, International Experts BMT Mexico S.C., and the Ministry of the Economy, NAFTA Office of Mexico in Canada.
“Two-way trade between Canada and Mexico totaled $34 billion in 2014. However, this figure doesn’t tell the whole story. Not captured by these statistics are many Mexican goods, particularly food and agricultural products, which end up in Canada via ‘middle-man’ operations in the U.S.,” Gray said. “It is a trade reality that increases company costs for transportation and distribution, and adds to consumer prices. This is about streamlining the supply chain and ultimately, providing Mexican companies with a more direct, timely way of distributing their products.”
The inland port at CentrePort Canada is the ideal spot for the consortium, providing unique access to rail, truck and air cargo operations from a strategic location in the centre of the continent, just one-hour north of the Canada-US border.
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The Province of Manitoba is distributing this release on behalf of the government of Manitoba, the Ministry of Economy of Mexico and CentrePort Canada.
Backgrounder
Background Information - https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/newslinks/2015/12/RLS-BG-Mexico-MOU-CentrePort-PR.doc